I Can’t Hear You!

Si­lence neg­a­tive think­ing and you’ll run bet­ter

THE DIF­FER­ENCE BE­TWEEN a good run and a re­ally bad one be­gins in your brain. If you be­lieve a work­out will be tough or if you fo­cus on feel­ings of bore­dom or fa­tigue, your body will fol­low your mind, mak­ing it more dif­fi­cult to have an en­joy­able out­ing. The good news is this mech­a­nism works in re­verse, too. If you can catch your­self in the act of neg­a­tive think­ing, it’s pos­si­ble to turn your mind – and your run – around. Here’s how to re­spond to com­mon down­ers:

‘I CAN’T BE­LIEVE HOW FAR I STILL HAVE TO RUN’

Fo­cus on only the next walk break or the next run seg­ment, or on reach­ing the run­ner ahead of you, or the next tree. Think only about one small por­tion of the run you know you can com­plete, and once you’ve done that, shift your at­ten­tion to the next. Be­fore you know it you’ll have fin­ished your run.

‘I’M SO TIRED’

Try re­peat­ing a pos­i­tive state­ment, such as ‘I can do it’ or ‘I feel bet­ter.’ Imag­ine how proud you will be when you fin­ish your run. Plus you’ll have a pos­i­tive mem­ory of per­se­ver­ance to draw upon the next time you’re feel­ing tired midrun.

‘I’M TOO SLOW’

Give your­self a pep talk with added hu­mour; eg, vow to set a record for the slow­est time. Re­mem­ber that you’re still beat­ing the peo­ple sit­ting on their so­fas. And if you want to be faster, ex­per­i­ment with shorter run and walk seg­ments – some run­ners find 15 secs on, 15 secs off is an ideal bal­ance.

‘I CAN’T BE­LIEVE HE/ SHE OVER­TOOK ME’

If you’re out for an ev­ery­day run, re­mind your­self to fo­cus on your own work­out. Other run­ners may be do­ing speed­work, for ex­am­ple, so they should be pass­ing you. In a race, use those run­ners as in­spi­ra­tion – feed off their en­ergy and pick up the pace a bit.